Information technology is applied in many sectors of the economy to improve management of processes having a plurality or multiplicity of measurable parameters. The prior art attempts to provide and implement information technology techniques that enable an information technology network to automatically and aggressively respond to indications of sub-optimal states of a target or monitored process. Some of these prior art techniques attempt to empower an automated management system to enable self-healing of the information technology network, whereby the network learns to alter the operation of the information technology network independently of interaction with a human manager. Certain prior art attempts provide a software program that independently learns to isolate causes of process, equipment, information technology network or system degradation, and generates and executes strategies to return improve the operating state of the target process, network or system. Prior art of this type requires a learning cycle and often fails to adapt at a sufficient speed when applied within in a heterogeneous and morphing environment, wherein the reaction of the targeted process to commands is less related to historical behavior. Furthermore, requiring a software program to predict all possible outcomes typically hobbles prior art automation management as applied to complex processes, as the universe of possible root causes and potentially appropriate responses may increase geometrically or exponentially in relation to the number of measurable or measured parameters associated with a monitored or target process. In addition, as the potential for serious loss caused by a damaging response by a prior art automated management system increases as the criticality of a process increases, the application of prior art self-healing techniques and other automated software driven management of processes, networks and systems are less likely to be applied where improvements in automated system management are most desired.
There is, therefore a long felt need for information technology management solutions that may conform to an existing hierarchy, scale to meet needs of various situations and organizational requirements, provide knowledge beyond status data and event descriptions, manage an information technology network in light of business priorities; and/or diagnose a state or trend of a process, network or system on a basis of information that includes data derived from human empirical review of observed and recent activity of, and date received by the information technology system.